Lesotho

Your Excellency Chairperson of the Conference, 
Your Excellencies, Ministers and Heads of Delegations Secretary-General of the ITU and elected officials,
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen, 

The Kingdom of Lesotho is honored to be participating in the ITU’s 2022 Plenipotentiary Conference, and we look forward to working with other Member States to achieve a successful Conference, which will ensure that the ITU continues to be an essential venue in advancing global telecommunications. The Plenipotentiary Conference is an important event to discuss and debate issues with far-reaching impacts on governments, businesses, and people around the world. Over the last few decades, increased access and connectivity have produced tremendous economic growth, allowed citizens to participate in the digital economy, and resulted in shared prosperity for billions of people. How we approach the issues at this conference will have long-term implications for a competitive global marketplace as well as investments and future innovations in information and communication technologies. 

Chairperson & Distinguished delegates: 

The Kingdom of Lesotho fully supports and endorses the ITU Strategic Plan 2024 -2027, in particular its two thematic areas: 

Universal Connectivity and Sustainable Digital Transformation. In line with the Connect 2030 agenda, the Kingdom of Lesotho has aggressively embarked on a 6 million USD “Rural Connect” programme. This is part of our e-Government Infrastructure Project. Under this programme, the government of Lesotho, together with its Universal Service fund is building Base Transceiver Stations (BTSs) in the rural and underserved areas of Lesotho. The expectation is that by the end of this programme we should have achieved close to 100% coverage. 

Chairman and Distinguished delegates, 

The Kingdom of Lesotho with a population of just over 2 million people has been able to achieve slightly over 60% mobile penetration. 79% of our population own mobile handsets. The greatest challenge, though, is access to digital skills and the gender digital skills gaps. The majority of our 2 million people cannot use the mobile set beyond access to basic voice!!! 

Chairman and Distinguished delegates, 

In order to address the digital skills challenge, the Kingdom of Lesotho embarked on an aggressive project code named “Schools Connect”. Under this project, post primary schools are connected to the internet. Due to lack of financial resources’, this initiative is going at a snail pace, hence our appeal to the ITU family for assistance. Regards to addressing ICT skills gender gap, the Ministry of Communications Lesotho has partnered with a number of NGOs to spearheard a project codenamed “Girls Coding Project”. Under this project our sisters are taught key ICT skills including: Programming, Machine Learning, Robotics and AI, among others. 

Finally, we reaffirm the commitment and availability of the Government of Lesotho, to continue participating actively in ITU activities and contributing to the achievement of the objectives of the Union. As the Kingdom of Lesotho, we are not contesting any of the ITU positions now, however, we will fully participate in the elections with the hope that all member states here will vote for our candidate in the ITU PP26. 

I thank you all for your attention.